


Hand Holds

by Polymathema



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Mentions of past abusive relationships, No beta we die like mne, Past Abuse, Past Mathias Shaw/Edwin Vancleef, Snowed In, baba yaga assisted emotional realizations, fairshawlidays, mathias shaw being mathias shaw
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:01:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28335813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polymathema/pseuds/Polymathema
Summary: In climbing a hand hold is a grip used to help find purchase on a rock wall or ledge.(7 prompts from the Fairshawlidays event on tumblr - connected into one story.)
Relationships: Flynn Fairwind/Mathias Shaw
Comments: 25
Kudos: 51





	1. Fireplace

He watches Fairwind work on the deck of the Middenwake, muscles shifting under the linen of his shirt, his coat thrown somewhere and not on him for once, not surprising considering the work Mathias has been watching him do for the last bit of time. Heavy ropes coil and shift, and he's doing something with the sails that the Spymaster does not pretend to understand even a little bit. The lights onboard the ship illuminate him better than the setting sun, but even then Mathias would have been able to see the familiar frame just fine. Even with his wandering focus he can still feel someone watching him in turn and seeing as it's not Fairwind, he looks down from his dark little alcove to the deck proper to see what he expected to see - Shandris Feathermoon watching him, better than the Commander at least.

To stop what he is doing would be to admit guilt, so he turns his attention away from her and back to the Captain of the Middenwake, hip shifting to rest cocked against the wall. He doesn't hear her come, no surprise there, only knows she is there when she lets him know, the exhalation of a sigh.

"Humans have such odd courtship rituals."

"I'm not courting him."

She leans against the wall next to him, her arms crossing her chest, nearly mimicking his own stance, "Are you not?"

He does not want to be having this conversation and definitely not with Feathermoon.

Leaving is conceding ground, again - guilt he isn't going to admit. "I would be far more up front about it, if I were."

"So you've been standing up here, watching him for an hour, for no reason?"

Mathias turns to level her with a look that would have sent trainees in Old Town running, but he doesn't expect it to do much to her, and it doesn't. Partial commander of their forces here, and he himself too for that matter, not much could have cowed the sentinel, and certainly not one human a fraction of her life-span. "He's easy on the eyes." It's in itself a damning confession but there are few who know him by name that do not know his predilictions. It had been a political move mostly, no one would ravel him up in their machinations for marriage plots to better their station if he was confirmed to be unwedable because he was unlikely to produce and heir.

He could swear she rolls her eyes at him. "Odd, what did I say? Why do you not just go offer him your bed?" She motions toward the Middenwake, "He would accept, if that is what worries you."

Nope, nope - not having this conversation. He takes a steady grip of the rail and swings himself up and over, landing on silent feet on the bottom deck, startling a champion on her way to report to Commander Wyrmbane. He sidesteps around the woman with an apology, catching a glimpse of movement from the deck of the Middenwake he spurs himself faster and takes the gangplank, only to hear the footfalls of a night elf doing nothing to hide herself behind him.

Cursing under his breath he swerves rounding the dock, hoping to lose her in the crush of people outside the harbormaster's office but as easily as he weaves through the crowd, so does she. Night elves and their damnable grace, it took him an entire twenty years to learn this. "Are you running from me, or from yourself?"

"I would appreciate it immensely if you minded your own business, Feathermoon. Do you not have enough to do, would you like me to set you up a target practice range, find someone who needs killing?" They break from the press of people, hitting the ramp that leads up and along, but right as he moves to round the corner, he realizes his mistake, too close to the edge, nowhere to go, he runs right into the large form of a Kul Tiran sailor.

He's seconds away from breaking the steadying hold - hands on his arms, before he realizes the surprised face looking down at him is none other than the focus of his last hour's wandering gaze. "Captain." He only just sounds this side of breathless which is embarrassing enough.

"Aye Spymaster, you're going at a right clip." His grin makes Mathias' stomach do unfortunate flips, "Were you coming to see me?"

"He was." Feathermoon pipes up behind him.

Oh that damndable elf and her meddling, this is what he gets for abandoning his paperwork. "I wished to hear your report on the Azerite shipment from earlier today, first hand. I heard there was a dragon spotted?" He does break the hold now, easily stepping back but the heat of the Captain's hands remain burning on his bare skin beneath his pauldrons.

An admirable cover, he pretends he doesn't hear Shandris' sigh to the side.

Fairwind seems to only just have noticed Shandris and he does as passable a salute he seems able, nothing at all respectful about it, and his easy grin ruins the whole pantomime. "Were you coming to hear me tell all about the dragon too, General?"

She shakes her head in the negative, bouncing on her heels in a way he's seen her do when she's at ease, an oddly childish movement for a woman so very old. It just reminds him of how different night elves are to humans, and he wonders how old she actually is, not just in terms of years but in terms of her people's maturity. His wandering thoughts are interrupted by the sweeping and dramatic bow that Fairwind gives her.

"Then do you mind if I steal the Spymaster? It's not often he comes to talk to me of his own volition you see, and I was hoping I could convince him to get a bit of kip with me."

Food. Kip was food, Mathias opens his mouth to deny the invitation, but Shandris is quicker.

"Of course Captain, and well you should - I have not seen Master Shaw eat all day."

"Like a bird he is." Flynn spins on his heel, throwing a look back at them - mostly at Shaw. "Coming Spymaster? I have some victuals in my cabin you might find enjoyable."

"I'm sure he will." Shandris Feathermoon bounces on her heels again. Damned woman.

He easily catches up with Fairwind, following him the short distance to the Middenwake, berthed as it was directly across from the Wind's Redemption. "Have you really had nothing to eat?" Fairwind's voice sounds soft with concern.

"I skipped lunch, although General Feathermoon wasn't there to see me do so." He's annoyed at that, she'd guessed and it had been correctly, which grated on him. That she probably paid close attention to his routine to know the truth of it.

"You do that too often and I'll be able to throw you around."

The glare he levels Fairwind with lacks teeth, "You would be sorely pressed to try."

He finds where the man had put his coat once they're in the Captain's quarters on the ship, slung over the back of the chair seated at the man's very messy desk. The window is open to let in the breeze and also the sounds of Boralus outside. Lighting a number of lanterns and also putting wood in the stove, Fairwind bids him to sit in-between tasks, and Mathias obliges him by perching on the only other chair in the room not piled with things.

"So the dragon-" is how the story begins and Fairwind is a consumate storyteller, Mathias finds himself enjoying the journey despite the little barbs he puts in to tell the man to hurry up with it. He doesn't hurry up with it anyway, and so Mathias has been plied with a large number of hard meats, savory cheeses, and crusty bread, as well as a bottle of wine, "And then we had to avoid the Horde chasing us halfway back to friendly waters."

"That's the part I want to hear more about." It's been an hour maybe, there is nothing but darkness outside and the weight upon his shoulders has gradually lifted with the application of wine and company. "Did they open fire on you?"

"Oh no, no. We were a good bit out from them, it would have been a waste of cannonballs, if I were to take a guess I'd assume they wanted to see if we knew any other islands in the immediate area."

A blade's edge of anxiety leaves him then, and he doesn't even realize it was there until it is gone. "Glad to hear it."

When did it happen, he wonders on his way back to his berth on the Wind's Redemption. When did he begin to fall for Captain Fairwind? Was it the treasury? Before? Was it the man's docier on his desk? In the past it had been easy to bury it, send the offending person away, or himself away. But Fairwind wasn't one of his and he had nowhere to go to escape this slow descent into familiarity. He should push away, he knows. Too much at stake and more - he is terrified of the release in it. To let go of that control and what does he have but himself to master? Too many variables and one can never control them, but himself - he was good at that. At denial and the chains of servitude. He was born for this, bred to serve the Kings of Stormwind in blade and body.

But looking at the light coming from the Captain's quarters on the Middenwake stirs something in him. Dangerous as a knife to the throat it is a hunger inside of him for something more than he had been made for. He knew where that got him in the past, it bloodied his hands and broke his heart, it resulted in a man's head on his desk and the dagger at his side instead of the man who it had belonged to. What was right and what was moral? Not for him to determine, that was the work of greater men. Ripples in a pond and Mathias was the man who monitored them, sent them in the right direction when needed. He was not meant for soft things, for a warm body to come home to, or in this case - to be the warm body to return to. He was no man's home, and never would he be, as much as he might ache for it.

He looks up the gangplank and sees Shandris Feathermoon's back and he turns on his heel, something in him aching too much to be prodded and poked at right now. His mind is far away and he pulls it back, reins it in with the spur of his own physicality. He sets off at speed, kicking off the high wall, his gloved hands finding perfect grooves in the old harbor wall to pull himself up the distance. There is an exhalation of breath behind and below him, a vendor gathering their wares for the day, but he is gone before they even fully register he'd been there and likely their surprise will bleed into disbelief for he is nothing but a shadow. He is running the length of the wall then, high but not yet high enough. Age and strife has worn the brick work - nothing like Stormwind's pristine harbor wall, it's gleaming white masonry - so when he jumps gaps he's able to actually breathe without the weight of guilt in every step, and that freedom causes each leap to carry him further, like a bird nearly in flight. Too long grounded for a roof-walker, too long at desks and buried under bureaucracy.

He takes the gap from the wall to the rooftops as if he is weightless, barely do his feet meet the tiles before he's off again, running the length of the roof's crest on the strongest part of the structure. When he jumps the next gap he looks down to see the market below for that fleeting second, the milling merchantiers and the travelers from all corners of Azeroth, with him above them all.

He's passed the trade's district, passed the Middenwake now too, he's scaling the upper level of the bridge toward Mariner's Row when his lungs turn to fire. He pushes further, further, a snarl as he forces air into iron barrel of his aching chest. One long wide gap and he soars. The landing is rough, he rolls through it and pushes himself up, staggers forward, on, on, he's not done yet. Shandris' words come back to him, 'Are you running from me or from yourself?' He flings himself forward, off the bridge, only to catch his hands against the old stone, the leather beneath them burning as he slides, down and down - but it's enough friction to slow his descent.

On his feet he shakes his hands out, casually looking up to meet the stare of the guard stationed a few feet from where he'd landed. The man has his mouth hanging open in shock. Mathias pushes the hair falling forward onto his face back. "Just testing the structural integrity of the bridge." He murmurs, turning back towards the way he came.

Luck, or something like it, is with him when he gets back to the Wind's Redemption. The only people on deck are Wyrmbane and a couple of Alliance Champions all three of them focused on the campaign map. He moves to slip past them only for the paladin to look up and catch his eye, and before Mathias can nod and dismiss himself, the man is speaking.

"Master Shaw, these two have some information you might like to hear."

There is nothing but darkness and stars above and yet the work is never done so he comes to stand by the table instead of vanishing into the hold - as much as he wanted to just curl up with a pot of tea and his paperwork. One of them is a Ren'dorei in cloth and the other a human in leathers and he leans against the table with one hip, arms crossed over his chest.

"Master Shaw," the Ren'dorei man bows with the customary flourish of his ilk that Mathias still had trouble determining was sarcastic or not, but the man's words didn't betray any disrespect as he continued, "When my partner and I were flying over toward Drustvar we saw some suspicious Horde activity in the region between Tiragarde and the coast over there."

Here the human man took up the thread, "They had a landin' part right along the coast almost up to Fletcher's Hollow." The man had a thick Gilnean accent, "We couldn't see how many there were, but it was likely enough to give someone up there trouble."

Commander Wyrmbane looked to him, "It doesn't appear to be a full incursion." There was an unspoken request for input at this point and Mathias leaned over to look at the map, tracking where Wyrmbane had put a pin in to denote the Horde sighting. The little cove was protected enough by mountains and more, and he could only imagine the havoc that might be wrought by a raiding part with a good foothold there.

"I'll send scouts." But what he really meant was that he was going to go down, pack an overnight bag, and go out himself. "Can you tell me anything about the individuals you saw?"

"I know one of 'em was an orc. There was also a couple of goblins, or extra large green mice, we were fairly high up, I'm afraid." The Gilnean man rubbed his bearded chin, "Saw a lot of crates."

Mathias excused himself after reassuring the commander he'd have something to report to Wyrmbane about come the next day. Finally slipping away to below deck he went to his office and then pushed through the door to his private quarters behind. Lighting the lamp he hung it up over his bed and began to arrange his pack. Poisons, a gnomish spyglass, and a small ration would hold him for the night. When he came back on deck the only one out was the night watch guard on duty and he gave the woman a nod as he took himself down the gangplank again.

Stopping to fill his canteen at the fountain in town and slip in a bit of cleansing powder, he let the sound of night-time revelry from the tavern nearby pour over him. It would have been easy to assign an agent to the task, there were a number of them off-duty tonight, probably finding their pleasures and daily relief in that very tavern. But the thought of the cold air against his face, the thrill of flight, and the promise of a mission to get him out of his head was too tempting.

The gryphonmaster greeted him with a wave, hands full of straw, in the middle of packing it down onto the nest of the gryphon standing nearby. The dark blue and red creature greeted him too, with a headbutt to the shoulder that would have knocked him over had he not braced himself for it. He sunk his fingers into her feathers and gave her a good scritch. "She'll miss you when you've gone, Spymaster Shaw."

"Doubt that will happen anytime soon." The war felt like it would go on forever, certainly he'd been in Boralus more than he'd been in Stormwind for the past months. "I'll need her overnight if she's rested and fed."

"Shadowtalon just had her sup, so you'll be doin' me a favor taking her out. She'll only want to fly after that meal, I wasn't looking forward to have to fluff up her nest for hours to try and get her to settle."

Drawing away from petting under her beak, Mathias took himself to saddling the gryphon, "There's a girl, we'll get you up in the clouds soon." Glancing toward the other nests he noted that one of them was noticeably empty. "When did Cadet Fordragon leave?"

"Oh 'bout an hour ago, took off toward the south."

He hummed a soft sound and slipped effortlessly into the saddle, already Shadowtalon's body was tensed beneath him so eager to take wing. With a final nod exchanged he gave her the pressure of his knees and then she was off, strong wings buffeting the ground and knocking straw about, before they were zipping up into the cold night sky. While all the gryphons he'd ridden in Boralus had been exceptionally well trained, there were two he had a fondness for, depending on where it was in Kul Tiras he needed to travel. There is a duality in the gryphons he favours too, ebon and snowy-white, both good for different cover. But for tonight's trip Shadowtalon's ebon coat would disguise him best, and that's exactly as Mathias preferred it to be.

Tiragarde unfolded beneath him, the long edge of it's coastline and the lights of various townships. He was barely at the height he liked best to travel at when the first sign of trouble became apparent. Smoke rising up from the south, near the mountains that cut off the main body of the isle from Freehold. The amount of it was reminiscent of a forest fire or a town burning and he banked Shadowtalon back down low to skin treetops, the air currents holding them steady. The source of the smoke became clear soon enough as they rose over the crest of a hill, the little hunter's lodge tucked away on the edge of the mountains was being attacked. With no sight of backup from Bridgeport in view he leaned his weight forward and Shadowtalon swooped evenly toward the ground. A less trained gryphon would have balked at the heat and smoke in the air but she just shrieked shrilly, a call for battle and blood. They hit the ground running and she bowled over a man about to strike down one of the lodge's hunters with his bully club. With an effortless motion, Mathias dismounted and then clucked his tongue and pointed toward the treeline. The look of distaste showed in her deep brown eyes but she fled the battle as directed, if she ended up hurt he'd never be able to rent a gryphon in Boralus again.

The hunter with her broken crossbow scrambled to her feet and then kicked the club away from the downed man, Mathias caught sight of her removing her skinning knife from her belt before he was turning, already slipping into the shadows.

He worked best in the dark and the fires from the inn set ablaze and various tent structures only aided in the shifting chaos of shadows, helping to even further obscure him. Humans against humans always put a bad taste in his mouth, but it was easy enough to determine between sides here. The hunters and traders of the lodge wore traveling leathers or hunting gear and were also well warmed against the falling snow - the raiders in contrast looked like burly dock workers and were trying their best to loot during the ensuing chaos caused. Ashvane dockworkers, Mathias guessed. Out of work and on the wrong side of the war.

Shadow stepping behind a truly massive mountain of a man, he struck sure with his blade into the man's lower back. Swift and sharp, he hit with a kidney shot before kicking the man in the back, only managing to stagger him to begin with thanks to his blade work. Even still it didn't prove enough to put the man down and he rounded a circle, swinging his sword wide. Easily Mathias dodged back, and the next blow he easily parried and swept to the side with the cross of his daggers. "Little Alliance dog!" Spat out along with blood and frustration, and Mathias slid under another angry swing. The crimson bloom of flowing blood was spreading through the man's shirt now, but his adrenaline was keeping him going. Soon enough even that wouldn't save him though, Mathias merely needed to wait him out.

He didn't have the patience for that tonight, not with the smoke catching in his throat and the necessity of ending this soon before the fires could do any more damage. Fielding another blow he caught it with his blades but instead of bracing himself he let the blow carry him smoothly sideways, knocking the man off balance. As he raged and stumbled forward, Mathias followed after him and with one economically placed swipe, he opened the man's throat up, the arterial spray hitting another raider in the face - likely the man had meant to aid his friend, only to then be bathed in the man's blood.

Mathias watched as terror set into the man's eyes as he watched the corpse hit the ground and lay unmoving. The scream that ripped out of that man was one that Mathias has heard many times before. Loss, fury, fear, hoplessness. He braced himself for the impact of blade but instead the man turned and ran, fleeing for the treeline. Before he even made it three yard there was a crossbolt in his back, and then two more.

The battle was over, the raiders were trying to flee, and mostly failing. The workers of the lodge had set up a chain of buckets from the nearby stream to put out the fires. He's in the middle of cleaning his blades when a well built woman with greying hair comes toward him. "Well you came down like a very pointy avenging angel. Alanna Holton, my thanks for taking out their leader."

He took her offered hand and shakes it after sheathing his blades, "Mathias Shaw."

With the widening of her eyes he can tell the name is recognized. "Wait here, please Spymaster. I've got an inn fire to put out." She was off then, rushing on to help her workers organize.

Taking himself to the treeline he was barely in range of the underbrush when Shadowtalon trampled over a berry bush to reach him, butting her head into his chest with enough force to make him catch himself or risk falling over. "There there girl, you did well."

Holton finds him in the middle of watering and feeding Shadowtalon to calm her from the excitement, tucked in next to a lightly singed caravan near the Gryphon master's stand. "Thank you for your aid again, Spymaster. We've got some help coming in from Boralus now. Is there anything we can do for you, or were you just sight-seeing?"

With Shadowtalon beak deep in chicken innards, he considers the downtime this little sidetrack is going to cost. While swift and feisty, Shadowtalon was also prone to battle-lust, and he didn't much favor the idea of taking her on a covert scouting mission with her feathers ruffled like this. She might try and divebomb the Horde and that would not suit his needs at all.

"I was scouting something along the Drustvar's edge, but I'll need to wait now for my gryphon to recover."

Carefully reaching out the middle-aged woman gave Shadowtalon a pat, holding her hand there she was obviously testing the mood of the beast. With his own hand buried in the soft feathers under her cheek he could already feel what she was looking for, the fine thrum of energy and a creature well worked up. "This one of Boralus' Gryphons?" She asked and he nodded in turn, "I'll have my man tether her to a line and send her flying to wear her out for you and then bed her down. I'd offer you our gryphon on loan but we sent him off to Boralus to call for aid and he's down for his own recovery."

"Thank you, that will have to do."

"The inn isn't likely to collapse in on itself and the fires all out now, you're hardly dressed for the weather, Master Shaw, please go settle yourself by the hearth while we take care of your gryphon." She smiled at him and gave him a bow before she was off, her shouted orders carrying across to workers and hunters alike, with a tone that commanded to be followed.

It was not until he was in the quiet of the inn that the actual chill of the outside air hit him. With the heat of the room around him closing in like a firm blanket he found himself biting down a shiver. Sweat from activity and also the abated adrenaline left him trembling and he settled down near the hearth of the fireplace, sinking into a chair with a cushion settled atop it. Around him was the bustle of many being tended to. Bandages and burn salves, a lone priest doing his best to take care of the ones worse off. He watches, letting the scene roll over him, only to find a steaming mug shoved into his hands by one of the workers. Taking a whiff proved the beverage to be hot cocoa and he sipped at it, leaning himself back to then settle the warmth of the mug over his chest.

He'd have to go on foot, likely. Which meant sending word to Wrymbane about his change of plans. Pulling his map out he balanced his mug on one knee and planned the best route to take. The Old Drust road would carry him through to Vigil Hill, and from there he could cut over to the coast. On foot it would take a number of hours all told unless he wanted to run the entire way, which he did not - only now regretting the roof-top run he'd taken after dinner with Fl- Captain Fairwind.

Bringing out his writing kit he pens first a missive to Wyrmbane and then begins the more laborious process of encrypting messages to his agents in Boralus. Thrice his mug is refilled as he works, while the bustle of the tiny inn flows over him. The fireplace was kept blazing and in no time the cold that had permeated him fled to be replaced by bone-deep warmth and contentment, he would not relish leaving his place before the fire when it was time to go.

"Shift switch!" The strong commanding voice of Holton filled up the inn after some time and Mathias looked up to see the tired forms of Boralus dockworkers and guards come in, sooty and wet. To his surprise among them was a familiar form, Fairwind's sure frame coming to slump against a wall, charming smile alighting on the lady to hand him a mug identical to Mathias' own. And as if feeling the weight of his gaze, Flynn's attention turned from the inn worker to meet Mathias and hold, a look of pleased surprise passing over his ever-expressive face. Despite the way he'd leaned on the wall looking like a cat drug from the Stormwind canals he bounded up to Mathias' chair like an energetic puppy. His cocoa splashed over his sooty knuckles as he plopped himself on the stones of the hearth.

"Fancy meeting you here, Master Shaw, come often?" Fairwind batted his lashes at him and Mathias applied himself to sealing his letters. "Shouldn't you be asleep on top of your paperwork or something?"

"There's something I needed to check up on along the Drustvar coast." Draining his mug he handed it to Fairwind who was tricked into taking it, before standing.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" Fairwind asked, peering into the empty mug. Someone was trying to put a blanket around his shoulders but he was too busy scrambling up after Mathias to let them do it properly so they gave up on him.

"Whatever you'd like." He isn't much surprised to find Fairwind following his steps out, it was too much to ask that the man be exhausted from helping out, at least too exhausted to hound him.


	2. Snowed In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mathias and Flynn find themselves up against the elements and get snowed in together.
> 
> Okay youtube search alaska blizzard sounds, enjoy
> 
> also uh thanks for reading this far oh my god?

Posting the letters at the mailbox, Mathias waits till the flap goes back down, snapping into place as whatever odd Dalaran magic sucks the letters off and away. Moving towards the gryphon master he notes out of the corner of his eye, Fairwind shoving their mugs off onto one of the lodge workers. By the time he's finished arranging for Shadowtalon's return to Boralus after her rest the Captain has finished and come to stand at his side.

"But won't you be wanting to go with her?" The gryphon master asks, peering up at the dark sky, "If you plan to go on foot somewhere, I'd do it another day, this storm is going to turn nasty soon."

Mathias followed the man's gaze but only saw the same slow flurry of snowflakes that seemed to always fall this time of year near the mountains. "How soon?" It still paid to listen to locals, every bit of intel helped.

"By morning at least but you'd get better information from a Tidesage as to what the water wants to do."

"Not a lot of them about here right now, mate. Otherwise we would have had your fires put out in minutes." Fairwind smiles amiably at the man, "What sort of storm are we talking?"

"At least twelve inches of cover, likely. See how much colder it's gotten with the sun down?"

Used to Elwynn's more mild winters in comparison to Tiragarde, Mathias considered it was always colder here but did note that there'd been a sharp drop earlier. Thanking the gryphon master he checked his bag one last time, going to stand behind the inn as he did it, unsurprised that Fairwind had followed him there. 

"Where are we going?" Fairwind asks, casually leaning against the side of the inn, the bustle of recovery efforts a hum behind him. 

"This isn't a we. I'm scouting and you're not coming, Captain." He can't look at the man, he can't bring himself to, as if he knows if he does, his entire resolve will crumble. 

"Have you ever scouted through Tiragarde on foot, Master Shaw? It's not easy, not that I'm doubting your abilities, Tides know you have enough of them, but when a storm comes on it's impossible to wayfind your way out unless you know the area intimately, even then it's a gamble. I'm sober for once," Fairwind laughs and Mathias turns to him against his better judgement, the man is suffused with warmth and good cheer, the colour of his eyes is hidden in the dark corner they're tucked into but the glint of them is unmistakable, the man is not just easy on the eyes, he is breathtaking like this - a private moment stolen, a view of the man that was entirely Mathias' and no one else, "And I know Kul Tiras like the back of my hand, let me be your guide for the night, you won't regret it."

That Fairwind could make that sound like a sexual invitation really doesn't surprise him, what does is his own response.

"Fine, but you need to keep up with me or I'll leave you in a snow bank to freeze." 

He wouldn't really leave him in a snowbank to freeze and Fairwind seems to know this for he laughs softly as if it's a joke. Mathias realizes that maybe it is, seeing as he wouldn't just leave him. With Fairwind's steady stride and slightly longer legs it's not too difficult for the man to keep up anyway. By the time they're onto the road and skirting a field of ice elementals the Captain has told him about the history of the Lodge, the Wendigo that had devoured an entire encampment of guards in one night, and the time he fell off a horse and nearly broke his leg. Two of these things were regionally applicable, the horse bit had absolutely nothing to do with anything else happening and Mathias was turning mental summersaults attempting to figure out how Fairwind had connected it all together.

He's forced to give it up when the man asks him a direct question, "Where are we heading again?"

"I never told you actually, so there is no 'again' at all." 

"Fairs that, so where are we heading?"

In the distance he can see the watchtower of Vigil Hill and above them the steady snowfall has continued, but it doesn't seem to be picking up much, if at all. "Down the Drustvar coast, some adventurers caught sight of a Horde encampment and I want to get eyes on it as soon as possible." He hears the apprehension in Fairwind's steps and manages to outpace the man by a few feet before the ex-pirate picks up his pace to fall alongside him again. After one run in with the Horde today, he's not surprised by the reaction, the Captain wasn't a soldier, he wasn't a fighter, he was a sailor who worked for profit and Mathias should have told him right off, it probably would have dissuaded the man entirely. "You can turn back or stay in Vigil Hill, I'll understand." 

"Oh don't worry, you won't get rid of me that easily." The levity and bravado is back into Fairwind's voice and step and Mathias is warmed faintly by the courage in the man, or perhaps idiocy, save he doesn't think it is that - Fairwind is perfectly capable of measuring the risk to reward of any given task, it's what makes him such a good runner of Azerite, amongst other things. It's just not entirely clear what the reward is here, what has the man following him on a scouting mission at all. Certainly Mathias isn't such splendid company that it's reward enough to follow him into a potentially dangerous situation? 

"Good thing I thought to pack some food to bring along, thought I'd need to bunk down for the night but they had it all well in hand by the time we even got there."

"Yes, Holton seems to keep things running smoothly." 

"Should be enough to feed the two of us, hopefully. You could eat enough for an ogre when you get your mind into it." Fairwind's tone is fond so the comment doesn't rankle him as much as it would coming from someone else. Many things the man says would have caused him a bit of ire coming from anyone else, which just goes to show how compromised he's become concerning his feelings for the Captain. "Not that you look like one, has anyone told you lately how beautif-" Fairwind's words are cut off abruptly by Mathias throwing his arm out to prevent the man from walking his way off the path and into a ditch, but also because he didn't think he could handle hearing the rest.

"Oh, thanks love, wasn't watching where I was going, too busy watching you!" Fairwind laughs and throws him a charming smile which he turns his attention from entirely, although silence and ignoring him had never worked on Fairwind even once. He nearly trips when the full sentence catches up with though, the casual use of 'love' and the flirtatious turn of phrase - it is only the years and years of training that kept his footing stable. 

"You would do best to pay attention to your steps, I'll let you tumble into the ditch next time."

"Wouldn't want you any other way, hardly yourself if you just follow me around keeping me out of ditches." 

Mathias sighs, "Please do not make me regret allowing you to come with me." 

"Do my best, love, but if you end up killing me and burying me in the snow, will you at least pour one out for me?"

Mathias throws him a worried and slightly confused look, "Why would I kill you? We're on the same side, Fairwind."

"Oh I meant, if I ever get on your nerves, or I suppose more of them than I usually do." The actual sheepish and self conscious tone of the man's voice sends a spike of guilt and something softer and sadder through him.

"You're charming and pleasant company, Fairwind." More than pleasant, Mathias had to admit to himself, he's relatively sure any number of people who knew him would have laughed at him for a number of things he'd done that day, from getting caught up in Feathermoon's trap to agreeing to let Flynn Fairwind himself follow him on a covert operation. Noticing the Captain has gone silent he glances to the side only to see a dark flush striping across Fairwind's handsome face. "Captain?"

The ex-pirate looks at him with an abrupt jerk, that curious flush tinting darker, "Oh, you're not putting one on?" The man cocks his head to consider Mathias and as such he's not watching where he's going and despite what he'd just said about letting Fairwind meet his end in a ditch he carefully maneuvers the man to cross into Vigil Hill without ending up in water. "Just a little hard to believe coming from you, mate."

"I like it when people can keep up with me in actions and words." The repartee they'd shared during the Vault job and after had been a pleasure, and Fairwind was capable of keeping up with him in many ways. He was perhaps overly lonely to have the company mean so much to him but the temperature was swiftly dropping and Vigil Hill was empty at this hour (and after much of the inhabitants had fled during the Ashvane funded incursion of pirates earlier in the year) so someone keeping up with him meant more than it probably should. They were ignored by the Night Watch, being just two men passing through, and Fairwind didn't bring attention to them by replying until they were out of the outpost and headed toward the northern point of the little isle.

Now far enough away from Kenning's Lodge the air lacked the acrid burn of smoke and instead set his lungs on fire via the cold. The snow was beginning to fall in a speed with which Mathias was starting to believe would be up to a gnome's knees soon. The northern end of Vigil Hill was home to a dock and moored there was a row boat and a lone watchman who stood from his chair as they made their way to him, grease lamp held high. "If you're looking for passage I'm not takin' anyone further than Hangman's Point."

"Come on, it's colder than a witch's tits and you won't take us down the coast?"

"Go get your own boat if you want to go further." The man looks old enough to be Mathias' father, not that he ever knew the man himself, still he could sympathize, the water looked ready to turn to slush and the man's spine was already bent, the cold probably wasn't helping.

"Just passage to Drustvar will do, thank you ferryman." Mathias cut in before Fairwind could make enough of a nuisance of them to have the man's mind change entirely about taking them over at all.

The trip over is uneventful after the aging boatman is convinced to let them row instead. Falling into a silent syncopation allows Mathias to center himself again and leave behind the Captain's flirtations.

When they disembark the ferryman holds his hand up to halt them. "If you're coming back this way you won't need a boat lads, the water will be frozen by morning, thick enough to walk on it."

"We will likely be taking a gryphon from the town north of here, thank you for the advice and safe passage." Mathias bows.

Fairwind, shaking out his hands gives his own farewell, "If it's going to be frozen you get yourself into a warm place then and take care crossing, you won't have us to feel guilty and row for you."

The ferryman laughs and his voice carries eerily over the water, the sound of the oars dipping into slush following.

Turning away from the water to look at the thick forest of Drustvar he felt more than saw Fairwind do the same as the man's arm brushed against his.

"Can't say I wanted to spend the day before Winter's Veil eve in Drustvar, but the company is worth it."

"Are you going to flirt with me the entire time?" Mathias turns, footprints left in the sand, looking for the nearest path to cut into the woods and away from the open air of the shore, the feeling of exposure sent a curl of chill down his spine which didn't help the fact that he was now freezing.

Flynn was remarkably silent for once when he strode to follow after him. "That coming from the man who just said he enjoyed my company. But I'll confess, I wasn't sure if you even knew I was flirting, mate. If it makes you uncomfortable I'll stop."

"It doesn't." It comes out before he even has a chance to stop himself, and then he's backpedaling, "But it's highly inappropriate and you should stop anyway."

Fairwind's footsteps falter behind him but then speed up and the man is at his side again despite Mathias trying very hard to outpace him at that exact moment. Damn his longer legs, damn all of Fairwind really.

"Inappropriate for who, or for why at that matter?"

There is a break in the treeline, what looks like a trampled path, maybe caused by animals, or maybe by men. He carefully pulls himself up the rocks before the trees, stopping only to turn and hold his hand out to help Fairwind as well.

Without pause, the ex-pirate takes his hand and uses the hold to help himself up. Standing suddenly chest to chest at the edge of the treeline, Mathias falls still and shivers.

"You're cold-" the Captain begins, only for Mathias to cut him off.

"You're not my subordinate, I have no rank over you, but I am the Spymaster and you constantly doing this in public, without me reprimanding you for it, will likely only result in people thinking I'm a pushover. No one is allowed to take those liberties with me, Fairwind. I do not allow it, if you were one of my agents I would have put a stop to it long ago."

They're still holding hands, still close enough to embrace.

"I'm not your agent." Fairwind smiles down at him, it sends a thrill through Mathias that settles like heat in the pit of his stomach. "No one could ever call you a pushover, love. No amount of rank and class is going to get me to stop, only you. You tell me you don't want it, and I'll stop, for you." He registers Fairwind's other hand coming up slowly, toward his cheek, before it can touch him a familiar and unwanted sound proceeds the sudden and sharp slash of air through the trees.

In Northrend, the howl of a blizzard was something he'd come to recognize. Even kept safe in the thick walls of the keep the wailing of nature was prevalent. Here, it hit with such sudden ferocity he grasped onto Flynn's arm for support, about to tell the man they needed cover when Flynn shouted it for him.

"If we don't get inside we'll be snowed under, love!"

He doesn't even need to spur them on, Flynn is practically dragging him along the path, and he kicks off at speed, rushing them along faster.

Maybe in Tiragarde the snow would have come down slower - there was something supernatural about the speed with which the forest was being buried by this storm. With local legends (or truths) about Witches running rampant and the Drust plaguing the place, it led credence to those thoughts. He could only hope that the Horde outpost to the south was being similarly affected.

Within minutes visibility was gone, their only boon was that the path they'd found kept them from needing to beat down the bush cover.

He hadn't been frozen before, not now that the howling wind was cutting him to the bone, the only source of warmth he could feel was the hand still clasped in Flynn's own.

When practical thoughts of survival turned steadily toward an acceptance of death, when he began to feel hot - he knew he was right about the magic in the snow. His pace was sluggish and yet Flynn still dragged him onward, he could hear the man howl something at the sky, but he didn't understand it, or maybe he was hallucinating.

The idea that he was beginning to slip became even more likely when he could swear he saw the impression of a building. Except then they were sheltered from the howl of the wind before it and Flynn was about to kick the door in so Mathias came to his senses enough to pull the ex-pirate back. He dropped their linked hands finally to go for his lock picking kit. The door's defenses fell away readily enough and the door was saved from having it's hinges broken. That his hands were shaking so much it put an extra few seconds on the lock no one could fault him for. It would have been unfortunate if they'd had cold air and snow blowing in on them.

Inside with the door shut against the intolerable chill allowed Mathias the moment to consider how he'd likely been ready to die. He'd have to take stock of that later, much later, and not now, and likely talk to one of SI:7's medics about his mental state. Or - or he could push it off till later and then never do it and throw himself into work as soon as he got back to Boralus. Not that he had experience doing that, oh not at all. 

Realizing he'd been standing in the middle of a one room cabin doing nothing but mentally snarking himself for his workaholic solutions to every problem for a few minutes now, he finally moved to help Flynn with the potbelly stove in the corner. While the entire cabin had a fine film of dust upon it's furnishings, the precut wood by the stove was dry and between the two of them they had a fire going soon. Luckily the pipe was clean and so they didn't end up smoked out either. 

"Mathias," Flynn drew his attention, forcing him to realize he'd been standing there in front of the stove holding himself and shivering for an extended amount of time, "We need to get you out of your armor." He also noticed that Flynn had somehow shed his own soaked-through clothing without drawing attention to himself and was down to his skivvies and nothing else. He stares, numb and perhaps stupidly, unable to do anything but stand there, even as Flynn comes forward and carefully begins to undo the clasps of his pauldrons. 

He's kickstarted by Flynn's touch and follows his lead, hands shaking. Remarkably Flynn isn't shaking nearly as badly as he is. "H-h-how-" Mathias tries and then gives up, until his teeth stop chattering he doesn't have the patience for himself. 

"Shh, love," Flynn's voice is so soft and low, worried maybe, and caring, "Just let me take care of you."

Maybe if he'd been capable of it, he would have flushed but he was too frozen right now. He moves his limbs as Flynn instructs him to and soon enough his armor is discarded on the ground and Flynn is pulling him under the dusty covers of the cabin's single bed. With his head tucked under Flynn's chin and his body tangled up with the ex-pirates he found some relief finally. Flynn was not hot so much as he was luke-warm but even that slight temperature difference was beautiful, rapturous, intoxicating. Like a blast of holy light flooding through him and for a man of the shadows it was almost too much - almost, but delicious enough to curb that overwhelming sensory experience. 

"I take it you've never fallen into a frozen over river." Flynn speaks against his hair and Mathias makes a hum in the negative not that it's very clear either way. "Didn't think so." Flynn added so he must have understood him anyway.

As the pain and shuddering slowly abates bone-deep exhaustion takes it's place. He doesn't realize he's fallen asleep until Flynn is moving from the bed to put more wood in the stove and easily drifts off once more when he's back in Flynn's arms.


	3. Terrible Mishap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two Rogues alone in the woods (or are they)
> 
> uh, stuff gets kind of spicy and then stuff gets really bloody but it's fine
> 
> Also watch me take light hearted and lovely christmas/winter veil themed prompts and make a vague horror story (gdi why am I like this)

He wakes slowly, his face pressed into the hollow of a decadently warm shoulder, when he moves his head to the side his mustache must tickle because Flynn rumbles a soft laugh. He hasn't slept this deeply in years, his limbs feel loose, his body warm, his mind refreshingly empty.

"Why do you feel so good?" His own voice sounds rough and raw, "Why do you have to be so..." too many words here and all of them damning, "Warm and soft?"

Flynn drags his hand down Mathias' back, knuckles rolling over his vertebrae and it pulls a deep groan out of him unwilling and unwanted so he hides his face against Flynn's neck only to have the man dig at a particularly thick knot in his shoulders. When he groans again it's straight against Flynn's skin and the response is perhaps not planned on Flynn's part if the little gasp that proceeds the bucking of his hips against Mathias' leg is any indication. The mumbled apology right after cements the notion though, Flynn does sound sufficiently sorry and even tries to pull the evidence of his morning arousal away from the leg Mathias has shoved against it.

An irrational part of Mathias urges him to grind his leg up instead and give Flynn something to really gasp about. He can feel the jump of the man's pulse beneath his lips and he literally cannot remember the last time he was in a bed with someone he was attracted to. Alright potentially a lie, as he remembered the last time, it's just he's had to kill most everyone he's ever been in a bed with - attracted or no. Usually being in the bed with them was a prelude to getting close enough to sink a dagger into them, actually.

He doesn't want to sink a dagger into Flynn, he wants to sink into the man and lose himself entirely, to taste his skin and hear him make more of those soft little sounds. To get him to lose control entirely and all for him. He wants more than he should, almost desperately so in that moment, for Flynn to sink into him too but literally. The thick heat of the length he can feel pressed against him, pressing inside of him instead, to feel him buried to the hilt. So he rolls himself away, leaving the warm nest of the bed to put more kindling into the stove. 

When he turns back to the bed Flynn is watching him from beneath the weight of his lashes, eyes trailing the length of Mathias' form with a look of such hunger and longing it freezes him in place, quite a feat considering the air itself out of the bed is rather frigid and he wants nothing more than to get back under the covers a respectable distance from his bed partner. "By the tides Mathi, you're so beautiful." There is a soft honesty and dedication in his voice, a tremor of emotion that turns the words from flirtatious to longingly painful.

"I'm old and scarred, I don't think anyone would ever use that term to describe me."

"They must be blind then, come on love, you're going to turn into an ice pop standing there. I'll not touch you inappropriately. You're more than capable of cutting off any offending body parts anyway, but you're safe with me."

"I have no desire to cut anything off of you, or cut you at all." He's crawling under the covers before he's even finished talking and Flynn's body is better than a blanket wrapped hot brick. They both groan, tangling limbs back together, bodies pressed flush. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Flynn looks at him, that same soft painful longing but this time with something else mixed in - something that makes Mathias hurt for him, a kind of disbelief mixed with hope. He's heard enough about the man's exes, he's learned enough on his own too about Flynn's past. He realizes he shouldn't have said that, shouldn't have said he wouldn't hurt him, because with the way Flynn is looking at him right now, the greatest hurt he could inflict on him would be rejection.

"It's alright love, I'm used to it." Flynn smiles at him, a cheap trick, a mask sliding into place but he's nowhere near as good at it as Mathias is. It's all for Mathias this theater performance, absolution, forgivance before the wound has even been inflicted. So he takes the man's face between his hands and leans in, pressing chapped lips to equally chapped lips, swallowing the gasp when it comes. Mathias has been hiding behind one mask or another his entire life; right now he's tired, open raw from a near death experience, and pressed heart to heart with the man he's been wanting for months now, watching like a lovesick dolt from one deck to another across a negligible stretch of harbor. 

When he tilts his head and lets slip his tongue against Flynn's lips the man blooms into the affection like a rose, barely subdued hunger and soft pressure. Mathias struggles to keep himself tender, to stop from biting a lip or pulling at the tangled mess of Flynn's ponytail. He ends up shivering with the restraint, having to pull back. His own breathing is wrecked and he isn't just shivering no, he's trembling over it all. Flynn's hands are petting over him, everywhere at once, and he has to close his eyes, ride through the shock of pleasure and the fire of his nerves all alight. 

"Mathi?" Flynn's concern would grate on his nerves if it were anyone else. 

"It's been awhile." He breathes it out along with an unsteady laugh.

"Was it alright?"

Mathias brushes their lips together again, chaste in comparison, before pulling back, "Perfect." Flynn himself is perfect. "But, I need to get an hour more of rest at least, then if possible I'll need to dig us out and go look at that encampment."

"I'll have to admit I was hoping you'd give up on that and stay in bed all day." Flynn grins at him, close enough to kiss, close enough to do quite a lot with. He slips one hand up to brush the hair back from Flynn's face, the other hand still cupping his cheek. Flynn flushes dark in response, the freckles banding over his nose and cheeks so sweet. "You're so gentle, love. No one's ever been this gentle with me." The soft wonder in his voice tears Mathias up inside, makes him want to rend and hit and tear apart - not Flynn, no, everyone who had hurt him before. He can't right now, so he moves forward and presses another chaste kiss to Flynn's softly parted lips. 

"Is it in apology? You don't need to feel bad, I don't expect this to leave the cabin. I know it's the whole situation, right? No hard feelings, mate." Flynn whispers against his lips, his hands betraying his words in the way they clutch and covet against Mathias' back and hip. It was cruel for him to have called out the flirting as he'd done the day before, when he was the one who encouraged it all the time. He can't help but to think some of Flynn's doubt and apprehension now is his fault, as it is always his fault when communication breaks down. He's the master spy here, he should know how to handle one ex-pirate and his own huge crush on the man.

"Flynn?" His own voice sounds so wrecked, so he presses himself closer to the sailor, moves his face to hide against the skin of Flynn's shoulder again. The hold Flynn has on him tightens, his hands gentle and kind, petting and stroking him, obviously comforting and it works.

"Anything love, what do you need?"

You, is the answer, one he isn't sure he has the right to give, "It's not an apology, I won't ever hurt you if I can help it. I'm not prone to sweeping things under the rug in my personal life, I handle them as they necessitate the need to be handled. You're not a problem, you're beautiful and ridiculous and I've been fond of you for some time now."

"Oh." Flynn whispers, the sound full of wonder and tenderness. "I'm quite fond of you too, Mathias." 

"You've been rather obvious about that, yes." He's tired, his body still drained from the night's trials. The comfort that he's given by the heat of Flynn's embrace is too much for him entirely to resist. He yawns, right against Flynn's skin, and feels the man laugh softly followed by a kiss against his hair. "You're in danger, just being familiar with me, it paints a target on you, Flynn."

Another laugh rumbles through Flynn, only succeeding in pulling him further into relaxation, "I'm already in danger all the time, getting touchy with the Spymaster isn't going to hurt my reputation anymore than sailing forth on Alliance silver is. In the places I came from before you met me we'd of called that 'blood money', Mathi." Flynn begins to stroke down his back again, less rubbing out knots and more a slow down and up along his spine like the brush of tide on sand, it's criminally relaxing, "Go back to sleep, love. I've got you. You deserve your rest, tides know you must be tired."

He drifts in and out, probably longer than an hour, at least it feels longer - when he does wake up entirely he feels energetic and back on his game. Flynn is asleep, still holding him, beautiful and open. He takes the liberty to brush the man's hair back, feeling the soft silk of those auburn bright strands and then giving into the desire to sink his fingers into it entirely.

Flynn has a beauty in him that makes Mathias ache to touch, one that isn’t just physical. The loyalty to his friends despite the betrayals he’s faced, the bravery he displays without even realizing, and a thousand other delicate things one shouldn’t find in the heart of an ex-freebooter. Life has not been kind to Flynn, he doesn’t need his dociers and files to tell him that; and yet, these cruelties have only shaped the man into an even gentler person. They are so diametrically different and Mathias shouldn’t feel the way he does, it will cause so many problems for him down the line, but right now on Winter’s Veil Eve, he wants nothing more than to give himself this one gift.

To not be alone, to have someone waiting for him and vice versa. But to ask that of Flynn felt like a sin.

With one hand in Flynn’s hair and the other trailing over his chest to lay against his heart, the man’s brilliant blue-green eyes blink open to meet Mathias’ gaze.

“Love?” Flynn’s voice is rough from sleep, whiskey smooth and it sends a thrill through him, just the easy way Flynn calls him that, as if it doesn’t hold such a deep and sentimental meaning, as if love wasn’t so dangerous for a man like Mathias.

“I’m about to go scout, just wanted to let you know.”

Flynn is suddenly wide awake, his eyes bright and sharp and his hand curling against Mathias hand over his heart, “You really think I’m going to let you go out there alone?”

He frowns down at the man, “Fairwind, I am a trained assassin and the Spymaster of Stormwind, are you really implying I cannot handle myself on a scouting mission?”

“No, it’s not that.” Flynn mirrors his other hand, reaching up to card his fingers through Mathias much shorter hair, “I couldn’t stand it if something happened to you and I was just here, waiting for you, would rather be there with you. I know I’m a coward, mate, but I love you. Can’t really hide that anymore and I’d rather go down with you, than never know what happened to you.”

“That’s why this can’t happen.” Mathias pushes away, standing to stalk over toward his clothing, but Flynn is right on his heels, and if Mathias’ body wasn’t such a traitor to him in concern to Flynn then the man embracing him from behind would have ended very badly for Flynn, broken bones the least of injuries Mathias had inflicted in the past on instinct alone. Instead he melts back against him, soft heat from Flynn’s chest and stomach pressed so enticingly against Mathias’ back. The toned strength of his arms wrapping around his waist, sailor’s tattoos shifting over muscle. “This can’t happen.” He repeats himself but it sounds weak and thin.

“Don’t run from me, please. I won’t hurt you, Mathi.” The words are placed against the side of his neck along with a brush of lips. Feathermoon had asked him if he was running from himself, it’s partway true, he isn’t running from Flynn, but from what might happen to him.

One gift, one impossible gift, that he shouldn’t give himself.

He turns in the circle of Flynn’s arms, pushing himself up even as Flynn tilts his head down. The kiss is slow and deep, Flynn’s tongue tracing Mathias’ lips and slipping past them as soon as they part. He kisses Mathias like he’s been doing it for years, perfect and slow, thoroughly ruining him. Flynn parts them, cupping the back of his neck and his hip, looks into his eyes and Mathias cannot imagine what the man sees in him that could inspire a look of such soft adoration. He knows Flynn doesn’t have false expectations about him which is what makes this all so painfully right. Flynn knows who he is and can still look at him like that.

“I’ll take whatever you give me, love. I’ve been a secret before, been someone’s mister too, whatever you want from me-“ he cuts Flynn off with another kiss, raw and wanting, he can’t stand to hear the rest, to hear the pain underlying that brittle hope. Flynn groans against his lips and begins to walk them backwards - back to the bed, but Mathias stalls them and pulls back.

“I want you, more than I should, more than is good for you. I’m lonely and I tried my damned hardest not to slow down enough to ever feel it, but your charm and dogged persistence on friendship with me has undone me. I don’t want a secret or a one night stand, Flynn. I want you, all of you, as mine, and I would that I be yours.”

The flush on Flynn’s tanned skin is decadent, the look of wonder in his eyes is breathtaking, if Mathias was a more poetic man he could have written sonnets about the beauty before him.

“I’m yours, love. Have been since I laid eyes on you to be honest. You’ve taken up my every idle thought, and the more I’ve been around you the more sure I’ve been that if I do one thing right in my life it will be to love you.” Flynn’s earnest confession and the hold he has on Mathias completely tears apart his every doubt and fear. “I know it might not work out, tides know none of my attempts have done so in the past, but I will give you my best try and you already have my whole heart.”

“If this is your way of convincing me to allow you to come with me, it’s worked.”

Flynn grins at him, fox-like and wicked, “Good. Now to convince you to let me follow you everywhere else. But we’ll take that one a bit slower.”

They dress quickly and Mathias even consents to letting Flynn do back up the job he’d undone of his armor the night before. It is painfully domestic and familiar and Mathias would think to ask how it was Flynn could be so familiar with his armor if he didn’t know the man had the hands of a thief and the eyes of a pirate.

The door is snowed tight up so Mathias ends up climbing out the cabin’s singular tiny window. Flynn can’t fit as much as he tries but Mathias is able to dig out the door for him. The blizzard has left everything covered in thick inches of snow, nothing untouched by winter’s blanket. Already he’s longing for the dusty bed and Flynn’s warm embrace.

When he’s got the door open Flynn tugs at his pauldrons, “Give me these, love.”

“What? No, stop that.” Mathias flushes over his own ineffectual batting at the Captain’s hands.

“You’re going to wear my coat, you’re not built for this weather, don’t argue with me.” Flynn grins at him while putting his finger playfully over Mathias’ parted lips. “Thought of it right as you slipped out the window or I would have put it on you before.”

He allows the coat to be slipped over his arms and ignores how it’s too large for him because it’s actually blissfully warm around him. Flynn ties it closed with one of his own belts and Mathias flips the fur-lined collar up to keep the chill from biting the back of his neck.

“Oh.” Flynn breathes out the word, a mixture of emotions but none of them particularly bad, “Tides I didn’t think what seeing you in my clothing might do to me.” The laugh that follows is tellingly nervous and Mathias’ eyes track down the man’s body to catch on the stiffy he’s obviously sporting.

“I don’t know how on Azeroth you’re capable of that in this weather but hold that thought till I’m off duty.” Mathias does perhaps tease him by slipping forward to kiss him, tasting the hungry groan fed past Flynn’s lips before parting to head south.

He doesn’t need to glance back to know Flynn is following him, if it weren’t for the trust he has in the man, the crunch of snow would have alerted him just fine.

Despite Mathias’ reservations about Flynn’s stealth abilities the man easily falls into the shadows alongside him, his steps going from loud and ringing to silent as a hare as they come closer to the coast the two Champions had indicated on the map. The late afternoon sun casts strange shadows through the winter-dead trees, shifting as wind blows their skeletal branches about, further aiding the play of darkness that obscures them from sight.

The first sign of trouble comes in the form of thick spiderwebs, laying like traps between the trees. Last night in the thick of that preternatural storm, unsuspecting travelers would have run right into them. Now they are easy to spot and the two of them silently weave between the traps of silken thread.

The first victims are spotted soon after, a thick cocoon large enough to hold a whole orc surrounded by smaller ones. Mathias passes near enough to one of the smaller ones to spot the outstretched hand, frozen solid and teal tinged from it’s likely original green. Having broken free of the spider’s snare only to freeze to death in the blizzard, what a horrible way to go.

As to the creatures that had laid these traps there was no sign. No long legs or skittering sounds, nothing but the wail of the wind.

Further in they find the encampment proper, the red and spikes favored by the Horde proper are half covered in snow and further cobwebs. There is a single large tent that Mathias reasons is the command tent and he’s about to pull back the flap to enter it when it flings open.

He moves quickly to the side, brushing Flynn’s arm as he does and effortlessly the other rogue follows him back to slide into the thick shadow beneath a nearby tree. Flynn moves his arm around Mathias and together they crouch down in the snow. 

The figure to hobble out of the tent is one Mathias recognizes based on intelligence reports but never seen in person till now. At one point she would have been a woman like any other Kul Tiran lass, but now the Drust magic wrought through her has turned her into a child's nightmare. The hag woman wears a grey tatty dress and a shawl of greying lace that had been made in a winter theme of snowflakes although they quaintness it might have once held is made horrific by the dark blood and vicera staining the threads.. In the rats nest of her greying hair she wears a bough of holy and mistletoe - oddly festive considering her bloodied grotesque face and the arm she is gnawing on, of the size that would have belonged to one of the goblins. She stops then, eyes trained on the tracks of trampling footprints and most damning of all, the fresher set of their own dancing steps appearing fresher. She must of spent the night in the Horde's command tent, supping on her familiars' work. At least now Mathias is relatively sure that blizzard really was a supernatural work, and they're looking at the perpetrator.

She can't see them, or she's pretending she can't, because she spins a slow circle, casting her bulbous eyes around in attempt to find them. At his side Flynn's arm tightens a little against his waist. 

"Tell Baba where you are, maybe she has gifts for you!" The old woman cackles, blood and spittle further staining her chin and the front of her dress. 

Flynn moves closer to him, slow, his lips are hot against the shell of his ear, "Does your mother still live?" The whisper is such that not even an elf would have heard it, Mathias is sure. He shakes his head. "Stay here at first." Flynn directs him and Mathias grips his arm hard enough to perhaps bruise, only lessening his grasp when Flynn stalls in his standing. Turning to look at the man, Flynn reaches out to cup his cheek and mouths out the words Mathias desperately doesn't want to see, 'Trust me. Just for now.'

He lets Flynn go, turning his head from him because he cannot stand to watch Flynn leave the shadows and safety of his side. Instead he turns his attention back to the witch, and slides his daggers from their sheaths, only finding shallow comfort in the weight of them in his hands.

The crunch of snow is once again apparent as Flynn leaves behind his skills to cough nervously, drawing the old hag's attention. Mathias watches the man give a rather dramatic bow. 

"Hello Grandmother, I am a poor orphan from Dampwick, what gifts do you have for me?" Flynn's voice betrays the strength of his performance, it's shaking with fear. 

The old woman hobbles toward Flynn, training one of her eyes on him as the other rolls lazily around the clearing still, looking, tracking, watching. "Your mother loved you very much, let me see..." the woman's attention turns from Flynn, dropping the gored up 'treat' to sort through the bag slung at her waist, "Let us see what Baba has for her grandson, but first, why have you come out alone?" She wags her finger at Flynn, still digging through the bag - just like a matron scolding an errant child on the streets of Stormwind.

Flynn stands slowly, his frame looking ungarded without his coat, Mathias grips his blades harder. "I don't know what you mean, grandmother."

The old woman laughs and moves her hand from the bag, too swift to sharp, Flynn isn't able to get out of range of the seeds she scatters at him, and within moments thick brambles and thorns raise up from the snow-packed earth, chaining Flynn in place. "Come out, child. Or Baba will make a feast of your friend." 

Mathias takes a steadying breath, stands, and sheathes his blades. 

When he walks he makes no sound, but she still finds him quickly as the shadows let him go. 

"Hello grandmother, I am an orphan from Stormwind, I only want for one gift and it's not in your bag."

The old witch looks him up and down and then smiles at him, it's sickening what with the black of her rancid mouth and the blood stains, "Your mother also loved you very much," the words sting him more than he would have thought they could, "Take your gift, but earn it. Give me your gloves." She holds her hand out, "Since you both cost me my sup." 

He grits his teeth and quickly removes his uniform's thick leather gloves. Instantly they sting from the chill, but he hands them to the old woman. She watches as he takes himself to Flynn's side and kneels in the snow, applying himself to the task of freeing the man from his botanical prison. To the side the witch tosses herself back onto one of the tree stumps the Horde had left behind when they'd made their camp, cackling a little as she bounced down. He ignores the way Flynn looks down at him until the man starts to struggle, maybe to aid him and Mathias throws him a quelling look, "Stop. You're going to cut yourself."

"I'm sorry, love." Flynn whispers, but Mathias isn't mad at him and he reaches up to squeeze the man's thigh where brambles aren't holding him still. 

The first cut slices open his thumb. They come fast from there, no matter how careful he tries to be, and he's capable of picking the most tricky of locks, clearly an enchantment - she really meant for him to earn his prize. He works quick and concise, ignores the prick and drag of thorns as they come, when his palm slices open he breathes in a hiss and Flynn throws a plaintive look to the witch.

"Please Grandmother, please stop. He's spilled enough blood over me and I'm not worth it."

"He'd spill more for you lad, let him work. He's almost done, see?" She must have done something as quite a lot of the brambles have fallen away, more than what Mathias has already removed at least. It only takes a few more minutes and then he is standing and stepping back to let Flynn move. 

"I was going to give you a blessing of the sea, but instead I will let you leave with your lives. You've seen what you came for anyway, children." The witch beats her bare feet against the stump, still holding Mathias' gloves. "Wash his hands with melted snow and Winter's Kiss or infection will set in, child of Dampwick." She jumps from the stump and stoops to pick up the arm she'd discarded before. Hobbling over to them after she rights herself, Mathias pushes down the urge to pull his blades, his hands were practically useless anyway, dripping blood on the snow. She hands Flynn the goblin blood-stained gloves and then peers at Mathias sharply. "Child of Stormwind, you will lose everything if you stay the course. Listen to Baba, she has given you your gift, do not waste it." 

Flynn tugs him off into the trees, beating a steady path back toward the cabin, he doesn't look back but Mathias does - only to see nothing but an empty Horde Encampment and their own footprints in the snow. 

"What -was- that? My intel implied the Order of Embers routed out the coven working in Drustvar. Yet you seemed to know exactly what to do in that situation until you went and got yourself rooted." He's putting his gloves on as Flynn pulls them along, the insides are clean enough and will prevent him from leaving a trail of blood the entire way back at the least.

"The Baba Yaga are older than that coven, they're protectors of the woods and have a nasty habit of eating wee babes, but they're also fond of orphans, especially ones who lost their mothers at a young age and lacked a loving matronly figure. I had a hunch I knew which Baba it was but they're all hard to tell apart and if I got it wrong she'd of just turned us into pigs and eaten us anyway so it was worth a shot." Flynn's voice is still trembling and the laugh he gives off is nervous and lacks all warmth. He turns, stopping sharply and brings Mathias' hands up between them, cupping the backs of his hands to leave his palms skyward, and bending to kiss his temple Flynn breaks. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, love." He's crying, hot tears fall against Mathias' own cheeks, startling him. 

Before Mathias can react Flynn is moving again, arm wrapped around him, his other hand still holding Mathias' hands up in front of them. Keeping them elevated, Mathias realizes. "It's not your fault she was a vindictive wretch, she didn't even care it hit the floor, she just wanted to watch us suffer for her amusement." 

"Of course she did, but I shouldn't have tried to run, I panicked. I... have to say I hoped you would have left me there, Mathi." Flynn stops sharply and gentles his arm from around Mathias, "Stay right there, love." He heads right for a cluster of bright blue blossoms rising up from the snow, Winter's Bite his mind helpfully supplies. His hands are itching something awful in the confines of his gloves and he feels hot, his head aches. Of course the brambles had been enchanted too, or tainted in some other way. He realizes now why Flynn had begun to lead them back to the cabin instead of toward the nearest town. His skin has gone hot and he can feel sweat beginning to bead at his brow. Flynn's coat has become stifling hot, but he dare not take it off, knowing that this heat won't benefit from the cold winter air. 

When Flynn returns, hand full of flowers, Mathias is swaying on his feet, "You know I would have rather liked our first date to be less work oriented, but thank you for the bouquet, Fairwind. I do trust you, you know, I do." The Captain stares at him, mouth agape, before he laughs suddenly, loud and lovely, the sound carrying over the quiet forest. "Better get me in bed before I fall over, darling." Too late though, Mathias pitches forward and it's all black, but somehow his last thought is certainty that Flynn caught him, he trusts him afterall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Hats, the Flynn to my Mathias <3 Merry Crisis babe


	4. Feast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh... sexual content ahead, reader beware!

Edwin VanCleef is standing a good bit of distance away from Mathias’ desk with his back to him, looking at the war map stretching out across the wall. Mathias is aware this is a dream because of a few reasons; first most is the fact that Edwin was never in his office once he became Spymaster, he’d been in this office yes, but it had been Pathonia’s at the time. Secondly, he’s had this dream before. 

When Edwin turns around the red kerchief he once wore around his neck is gone, replaced instead with the poetic gash of a beheading, blood all down his front. His face is as handsome as Mathias remembered it to be even pale and bloodless. He’s not rotting, not undead, he’s just trapped on the cusp between life and unlife - waiting, for what Mathias cannot imagine. 

“You, actually.” That’s not... usually how this plays out, so he’s a bit startled to hear Edwin speak. Usually, his hazy dream addled brain supplies, Edwin screams until Mathias has to saw his head clean off to get him to stop. “You’re pretty fucked right now, Shaw. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to do this.” Usually he’s not this talkative. 

The events of the past day play out in his mind. Flynn and himself nearly nude and tangled together in bed sharing tender kisses, the web-strewn Horde encampment, the cursed brambles that made a ruin of his hands, and then Flynn again clutching a handful of Winter’s Bite and laughing. 

“Oh.” Mathias slumps down in his office chair, staring down at the empty expanse of it, feeling bereft over there being no tangible sign of his importance and place there, “The infection must have set in.” 

Edwin moves silently around the desk, to lean his hip against the edge and reach out his ungloved hand to card through Mathias hair and then cup his cheek. He struggles not to lean into the touch because it shouldn’t be so painfully familiar after all these years but his dreams about Edwin have never been kind to him, it does help that when he looks up at him he’s viscerally reminded of the fact that Edwin is covered in his own blood. 

“You’ve finally found someone else, I was afraid you’d die like the rest of us. Alone, fighting shadow wars, a puppet of higher powers. At least you won’t be alone, you’re too stubborn to break away for the rest of it.” 

“Edwin, I’m not sorry. I did what I had to do, as much as you did what was right.” 

“I never once expected you to apologize, Shaw. I’m not bitter, I can’t afford to be. I’ve been waiting for you, if you kept putting the crown before everything else I’d of had you.” Edwin leans over and brushes a bloodied kiss to Mathias’ temple, “Live a little. Smiles always looked so good on you when you let me see them.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” But Mathias doesn’t get an answer, the world outside his office blacks out like a street lamp snuffed out, and quickly following it is the rest of his surroundings, room, desk, Edwin and then himself. 

Mathias hates getting sick, it happens so little that when he’s truly hit with a cold or flu it completely knocks him flat for a day at least and a week at most. When he wakes up he knows by the stiffness in his body and the fuzziness in his head he’s been asleep at least a few hours, maybe half a day. There is a heady scent around him of herbs and some kind of meat broth and a gentle low pitched humming of what he can only imagine is a shanty song. Stretching his fingers he finds them constricted by cloth and a surreptitious glance down provides the knowledge that someones’s undershirt had been torn to strips to bandage his hands - not his though, the cloth is green and not black. The itching is gone, replaced instead by a cooling balm, and he sighs softly in relief. 

Flynn turns around from the stove and Mathias is quickly enveloped in a hug, pulled half into the man’s lap, the other man moving like a whirlwind. 

“Oh love, you worried me nearly to death. I thought I’d lost you.” Flynn’s eyes are so clear and earnest and he’s smiling at Mathias like he’s the single ray of light in his entire life. The look on Flynn’s face, the heat of his skin, the sound of another storm wailing away outside all serve to banish the dream from his thoughts. 

“How long was I out?” 

Flynn helps him sit up even though it’s not so necessary, “About five hours, the storm started right after I got in with a bucket of snow. Treated your hands and got you comfortable before I poked around a little. I found dry food goods stored up in one of the chests and up on a shelf was a whole five pound ration of salt pork as well as a good chunk of pemican and some cured venison. We’ll be having a feast soon between the stew I’ve got going and the food I packed from the Middenwake.” 

Mathias makes a mental note to send someone out to restock the cabin and leave some coin as well. If it hadn’t been for whoever used it, they’d likely be dead. He probably would be at the least. 

“I made a paste of the rest of the Winter’s Bite and threw some dried mint I found in with the stores in there after I washed your hands, how’s it feel?” 

“Good, I can’t feel them much. No pain or itching.” 

“We’ll get you to a healer as soon as this storm stops,” a flicker of guilt passes Flynn’s face, he’s so bad at hiding his emotions, “Maybe, might be they won’t even scar, mate.” 

Mathias doesn’t like the way Flynn is looking at his hands, like he’d split them open himself, like Mathias himself looks at Edwin - so he puts his hand up to cup Flynn’s cheek the best he can and drags the man down into an open and eager kiss. 

There is absolutely no hesitation in Flynn, as soon as their lips meet he’s just as eager with lips, tongue, and teeth. His hands are brands skimming up Mathias’ ribs and back causing a heady moan - one that Flynn greedily swallows. There is no guilt in this kiss, no delicacy or restraint, it is obvious that Flynn wants him, desperately if the way he hefts Mathias into his lap is any indication. 

The juxtaposition between his own mostly nude body and Flynn’s mostly dressed one sends a thrill through Mathias that he’s going to have to consider when he’s capable of rational thought. 

Flynn breaks the kiss, moving to press his face against Mathias’ hair, hands still eagerly skimming over his back. Mathias drapes his arms over the captain’s broad shoulders and presses them tighter together, earning a soft moan against his hair for his efforts. “Good?” He asks, as if he doesn’t already know. 

“You make me come undone in quick order, love. I can’t remember what I was doing.” 

“Making us stew, I think.” 

“Oh! Yeah, it can wait.” 

With that Flynn flops backwards on the bed, taking Mathias with him. A huff of laughter from them both follows, and Mathias maneuvers in the brace of Flynn’s arms to straddle the man’s hips and uses his own arms under Flynn’s head to prop himself up and look down at the Captain. Flynn is so breathtaking, hair in disarray and the look of adoration on his face open and plain to see, he is beautiful. 

"Tides Mathias, you're so beautiful." 

He flushes and leans down toward him, "I was just thinking that of you." When he kisses Flynn he sets a decadent pace, slow and thorough, lapping into the man's mouth and settling the weight of his body over Flynn's. Big hands slide down his sides, to settle playfully over the curve of his ass and then squeeze, causing Mathias to rock his hips back, into Flynn's hands. 

"Are you off duty now?" Flynn asks into the kiss and Mathias blearily remembers what this is in reference to, although it's a bit hard to focus on that line of thought what with Flynn massaging the back of his thighs and buttocks through his skivvies, hard to focus as something else was also hard. 

Moaning he rocked himself back again, grinding down on the erection now straining against Flynn's breeches. Good gods, that was delicious - so he did it again, setting a bit of a pace for them. 

"Yes, off duty." He manages, shutting his eyes tight as Flynn takes his hips in hand and grinds himself up and Mathias down, slotted so perfectly between Mathias' legs in a mimicry of fucking that spikes heat through his blood. He throws his head back, unintentionally baring his throat, which works out anyway as Flynn cranes up to latch his mouth to the sensitive skin there and suck a mark into him. "Flynn, by the gods." His own voice sounds wrecked to his ears. The captain's attention deepens, still grinding them together and setting his teeth to flesh - slow, careful, intimate. This isn't meant to hurt, not meant to tear, the steady and slow force of it, the way Flynn rocks them together to counterpoint the pain. It bleeds it all into pleasure, even as the pressure becomes too much, his body feels like a line wound too tight, high energy thrum and a whine sliding from the back of his throat he'd be ashamed of it everything didn't feel so damned good. 

When Flynn's mouth breaks from the side of his neck, Mathias goes limp entirely with a great shudder and a sigh. 

Flynn's arms move to hold him, pressing a kiss to Mathias' temple and then his hair, "I'm sorry love, too much?" 

"Been even longer than since I've last been kissed. It's good, just... a little overwhelming." His breathing is evening out now, but his pulse is still jumping. 

"Can't lie, it's blatantly obvious I want you, love. But only what you're comfortable giving, I'd really like to make you feel good; if you tell me what you want I'd give you anything." 

"You." Mathias laughs breathlessly realizing that wasn't helpful at all, he looks down at Flynn again, his heart beating fast, and the way Flynn is looking at him is doing very little to calm him down. The sea green-blue of his eyes dark with hunger, dilated and glinting. "All of you." 

Flynn is holding him braced above him, a look on his face akin to awe, "You want me to take you, Mathi?" 

"By the Light, yes." He flushes at the eagerness of his own voice, at the way Flynn's words send a spike of arousal right to his cock. "I want you, have wanted you for bloody months, it's driving me to distraction. I have to run just to get you out of my thoughts and today a fucking witch nearly ate us and made me weed just to give myself a fucking gift, weed - without my fucking gloves - just to have what I've been denying myself for months." 

"Wait, what?" 

"You're the gift, Flynn, it's you. The only thing I want for is you. Yes I want you to take me." He grinds down his hips to counterpoint the argument, lining up Flynn's cock just perfect so that he has to bite his lip from how preciously good it feels. 

"Why didn't you just," Flynn groans at the rock of their hips together, "say so love? I'd of taken you to bed long before now." 

"I don't know anymore right now, ask me again later." 

Flynn's laugh is captured by a kiss, and Mathias finds himself suddenly being tipped off balance, as Flynn rolls them over on the bed. Breathing out in surprise he breaks the kiss to look up at Flynn, feeling the shock on his face over how effortlessly Flynn is able to manuever him around. 

"We've a problem in that I didn't exactly come prepared to have a thourough fuck, love." Flynn slips his hand between them and undoes the laces on his breeches, the sight of his cock smearing his small clothes with precome through the gap nearly makes Mathias consider using spit as a substitute but rational thought prevails. He's not had a lover in many years for one, Flynn is thick and well hung, and Mathias isn't a young man with a body that can just bounce back anymore. 

"Just take us in hand then." He can't help the commanding tone of his voice, it must do something for Flynn anyway as his cock twitches against the linen. 

"When we get back to Boralus," Flynn murmurs, shoving his skivvies to the side, the thick weight of his cock bouncing free, the head of it swollen and leaking, "I'm going to take all night getting you ready for me, Mathi, till you're begging for me like a good boy." 

The heat that washes through him is embarrassing in it's intensity, the logical part of him wants to argue that he's probably almost ten years Flynn's senior, the hungry delerious part wants to prove how good of a boy he can be for Flynn, both parts are silenced as Flynn's fingers drag down the linen of his small clothes and takes them both in hand. The glide of their cocks together is slick, the heat of Flynn's palm against his shaft, the way he twitsts his wrist to drag it against the swollen head, it's all so good and perfect. The pace is decadent and slow, as if Flynn knows how he jerks himself when he has the leisure of making it last. 

"I'm going to tongue you open and get you nice and wet for me, would you like that, love?" Flynn's voice is so syrupy thick with lust and it does as much for him as the man's hand is doing, which is leagues. 

"I would." It's more a gasp than real words, but he doesn't even care because it's so good, the grasp of Flynn's hand, the rocking of their hips together, the way Flynn lowers his mouth to tongue at the mark he'd pressed into Mathias' skin. 

“You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever met, Mathi.” Flynn moves his lips from the heated place he’d marked and up, to whisper against Mathias’ own as he rocks them together, as he strokes them slow and perfect. The way he’s looking at Mathias makes him feel exposed and seen in ways that are uncomfortable in their intimacy. It sends a frisson through him that lights his nerves on fire. “You’re so good for me, love. That’s it, just let go for me.” 

It’s too much, years with just his own hand, years alone and cold. Flynn’s weight over him comforting and protective, his strokes slow and languid like they have eternity for just this, the way Flynn talks to him - he comes, gasping desperately against Flynn’s lips, feeling the delighted praise rather than hearing it by way of the smile curved against his lips. 

Flynn pulls every last drop from him and when Mathias is able to better focus he looks down to see the frantic way Flynn is tugging his own cock, slicked now by Mathias’ spend. He moans as a shiver of arousal tries and fails to stir him. The way Flynn is watching him would have done it if he was capable of another erection physically, the look is so intense and desperate, eyes dark and lips parted as he pants over Mathias and jerks his cock so quick. 

“Goin’ to take that sight to the grave with me, never seen a treasure more precious than the way you let go, love.” 

His breath hitches a little, his skin flushes and shifting forward drags his spent cock against the stroke of Flynn’s fist. It pulls a moan out of him and that, that seems to be what does it for Flynn, the sound of his pleasure pulling the man over the edge. Body rigid and head bowed, his come paints Mathias’ abdomen, one streak, another, a third final one. Flynn keens a high reedy sound holding his twitching cock, braced between Mathias’ legs, his back arched and face open with his pleasure. He takes great heaving lungfuls of air and then gracelessly thuds sideways to lay next to Mathias on the bed. 

His arm is across Mathias’ chest pinning him, his leg is across Mathias’ leg also pinning him, and his spend is striping Mathias skin. On any definition of the word, Mathias would have to admit he has been well and truly claimed. 

“Give me a minute love, I’ll get you cleaned up.” Flynn murmurs voice deep and rusty - he sounds well fucked and Mathias feels like if he were able to he might purr. “Just need to catch my breath.” Flynn is holding him, Mathias realizes, warm and careful. 

He almost drifts back to sleep, it’s so warm and his body is so relaxed, when Flynn does manage to move off of him he rouses enough to look down at himself and give a soft huff of bemusement. He’s got Flynn’s come dried on his stomach and his own skivvies are rucked down around his thighs, he looks ridiculous and yet he can’t bring himself to care or to even move enough to fix his undergarments. 

Flynn does it for him after cleaning Mathias up, using a scrap of the same green fabric binding his hands to clean them both up and then tenderly tucking Mathias back into his clothing and under the blanket once more. Mathias grins before pushing up onto his elbows and catches Flynn’s lips for a moment managing to distract the man entirely. When they part Flynn looks drunk, eyes half closed, “Could get a man addicted to you with kisses like that.” 

“Oh?” He falls back onto the bed laughing softly as Flynn drifts after him. 

“Save I already am, love.” 

They kiss, slow and soft, Flynn tangled around him and the blankets. When Mathias parts them Flynn tries to follow, chasing his lips with his own until Mathias is pressed into the wall, laughing against his lips as Flynn strains forward. “Can’t get enough of that laugh.” Flynn murmurs and the fond happiness in the man’s tone causes Mathias’ face to heat. 

Catching up his hand in Flynn’s hair he draws back to look at him, the handsome set of his features, the nose broken enough times to have character all its own, the bright clever eyes and devilish lips curved into the softest smile. 

“I'd like to keep you like this, all to myself, as long as I can. But as soon as the storm stops I need to get back to Boralus." He bites his lip, "Would you join me for the holiday?" 

Flynn's beautiful sea blue-green eyes are bright and filled with such joy and affection, he cups Mathias' face in his hands, pressing a kiss to his nose that makes Mathias breathe out a laugh, "As many holidays as you want, as long as you'll have me, Mathi." They kiss, slow and soft, and Mathias gets his fill of Flynn, the drag of the man's hands, the leisurely way they tangle together. 

He doesn't know how long he'll have him, not just for the holiday or the war, but every war after. The fever-dream and the witch's words haunt him with an urgency inside that is only tempered by the way Flynn touches him and warms his skin, decadently careful the man moves against him as if they have all the time in the world, just the way he'd stroked Mathias off. He realizes absently, with Flynn licking his way into Mathias’ mouth, that it’s mindful and with a purpose this speed that Flynn moves with. Some part of him had thought before, when he had allowed himself very briefly to imagine it, that Flynn would have been a less careful lover. 

He mourns the bandages on his hands, for he wants so badly right now to touch in turn, to strip that resolve right off of Flynn just like his clothing, but that will have to wait. 

Flynn parts from him apologetically to go tend to the pot on the stove and Mathias turns on his side to watch him, noticing his clothing hung up near the stove and the bowl of water and winter’s bite herb on the floor nearby. Flynn would have had to carry his dead weight all the way back, tend to him in his state, and have the steadiness to take stock of their supplies. He knew the man was capable but the knowledge that he was also clearly strong and smart enough to pull that off sent a warm flush of something complicated through Mathias. If the man -had- been one of his agents he would have been proud, as it was though, he thinks maybe he’s just feeling needy. 

He manages to get all the way across the room on silent feet before Flynn catches sight of him trying to get dressed and makes a sound, catching him up in one arm with stirring spoon in hand, “No, no, no Mathi, I’m not done feasting on you yet, let a man have one thing.” Flynn pouts in so playful a manner, batting his lashes in a way that Mathias should find ridiculous but can’t because the man is just too handsome. 

“You want me to sit around in bed unclothed and useless?” Mathias’ useless hands are holding his breeches and then they’re not because Flynn discards them for him. 

“I want you to sit around in bed and be gorgeous, love. Toddle on now, I’m almost done here.” Flynn’s lips are a brand where they brush against the mark he’d made on Mathias’ neck, the feel of it is so visceral and intoxicating it actually makes Mathias return to the bed when Flynn gives him a push in that direction. He sits, vaguely out of his body, his hand rising to touch against the same mark, as Flynn finishes up at the little stove. It has been a long time, a very long time, he could blame it all on that but he knows just as much it’s not the time that is doing this to him, it’s Flynn. 

It’s how he feels about the man, how he wants more than just a few nights of this, than just a Winter’s Veil gift. This holiday and as many as he’d have Flynn for - he wants him for every holiday for the rest of his life. Looking at the way Flynn stands near the stove tasting stew made from partly ‘borrowed’ goods, he knows the reason the mark has put him so off balance is the simple fact that it’s a tangible and steady reminder that he’s wanted in turn. 

Flynn is a flirt with a legacy of notches in bed posts, Mathias has heard about some of his exes and also now knows the abuse the man has had inflicted on him by said exes. If Flynn would have him, forever, he’d never be hurt in that manner again. He suddenly longs so deeply to belong and to have that it hurts, his chest aches with it as if he’d just run the entire length of Boralus’ skyline. Nothing in Flynn’s history would lead him to believe the man did long term, but that one line has him wanting, ‘as long as you’ll have me.’ 

“Forever.” He says right as Flynn turns around with two bowls of stew in hand. 

“Come again?” Flynn sets the bowls down and moves to fetch a plate piled high with the food from both of their packs and some of what he found in the stores here, it’s more than Mathias is reasonably sure they can actually eat. 

“I would have you, forever. As mine and I as yours.” 

Flynn freezes up, standing over him, plate of dried goods in hand. Stares at Mathias with an unreadable look and Mathias thinks this is it, when he’s fucked it all up again, as he always does when it comes to his personal life, that he’s moved too fast or misjudged, that of course Flynn didn’t mean it, didn’t want that kind of commitment. 

Who would? With someone so dangerous to be around, so married to their work, with hands so bloodied - who would want that? 

Flynn drops the plate, practically in Mathias’ lap. He’s about to complain about the cheese and bread crumbs but then Flynn is kissing him, deep and crushing, no control or finesse, and Mathias forgets to hate himself for a little while, because one did not need words with a kiss like this. 

When they part, both gasping for breath, Flynn leans their foreheads together, “I would follow you to the end of the world and further, been in deep for you, for so long. Sometimes I felt like I was drowning just looking at you from across that gap between our ships, love. Just waiting for you to get fed up with me instead of amused, and now you say you want this? I’m not fit to kiss your boots, not just because of your rank, just you. You’re so gorgeous and deadly, and you saved our lives when I fucked up a witch’s bargain and yet you still want me?” Flynn blows out a breath that sends his fringe puffing a bit in an adorable manner. 

“Tides I must have spent all my luck up in this one roll of the dice, to get you saying that to a worthless deadbeat like me.” 

Mathias carefully uses his cupped hand to roll bread off his lap and back onto the plate. “We will work on your self esteem.” 

Flynn laughs, pressing a soft kiss to Mathias’ temple before applying himself to brushing off the food he’d dumped on Mathias. 

They eat together with Flynn feeding him and actually managing to not get it all over. Mathias does have to remind the man to eat himself, as Flynn’s attention is focused more on Mathias. There is a pleased warmth on Flynn’s face, a mixture of pride and affection, and Mathias can guess by it that Flynn likes to provide for his lovers, something that mixes him up inside. Self sufficiency was beaten into him, he can survive anything and take care of himself, but in this moment he feels only warmth and comfort, none of the bristle of nerves or flight that a healer’s care or someone’s misplaced worry would have caused. 

Flynn taking care of him is somehow an intimacy all of its own, one he finds himself desperately in need of. Without the ability to grasp and hold things he is at the whim of circumstance and yet Flynn’s attention and care is like a balm. The dull ache beneath the bandages is easy to ignore as Flynn feeds him thick crusty bread dipped into a savory stew. A few times he catches Flynn’s fingers too and watches the Captain’s eyes darken and his gaze drop helplessly to Mathias’ lips. In this moment the power of his own sexuality is a high he hasn’t felt in a decade maybe. The way that Flynn looks at him, even after being saited, leaves him humming with pleasure. 

“You’re the finest thing I’ve ever touched.” Flynn whispers, eyes lowering to their meal, selecting some cheese to feed Mathias next, “Hard not to look at you all day, perfect and poised. Expensive looking.” 

Mathias thinks about where he’s come from, about their similarities. Rogues the both of them and yet still vastly different. He doesn’t feel fine or expensive. He has no noble title, no court standing outside of his position in SI:7. Everything he has can be attributed to his career - one he trained to take from childhood. Flynn has earned his place, fought for it, treading water for years upon years. 

“You have more value than you give yourself credit for, Captain. I’m no finer than anyone else, and certainly not expensive.” 

“You make me want to drape you in riches, you would look so lovely all glinting in gold and fine gems.” Flynn presses the cheese to his lips and he has to swallow before responding. 

“Very pirate of you to say, darling.” Mathias grins at the sound of Flynn’s laughter, soothed and saited in more ways than one. 


End file.
